


Scars

by The_Lights_Dance_On



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Character Study, Daily Prophet, Dumbledore's Army, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Harry sucks at first, Hogwarts Eighth Year, Love Confessions, Potions, Witch Weekly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-05
Updated: 2019-09-10
Packaged: 2020-10-10 15:38:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 6,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20530427
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Lights_Dance_On/pseuds/The_Lights_Dance_On
Summary: Marietta Edgecombe returned to Hogwarts only to get a decent job so that she can comfortably melt into obscurity, and get the hideous scars off her face. The fact that she has to deal with the suffocating nature of current society is a given, even if it's horrible.Hermione Granger isn't willing to help her out, however, and Harry Potter doesn't seem to care about her at all. That's fine. Marietta doesn't think he's very impressive either.





	1. Human

The Great Hall is just a box of craning necks. Marietta does not have to turn hers and does not want to. Who else would it be but Harry Potter? Of course, it _might_ not be him. It could be a first year with a name that nobody has heard of, wanting to talk to Hermione Granger. Or a pureblood girl stuck between traditional parents and an urge to be important in a new world, making eyes at Ron Weasley. Blood purity and Voldemort and the Unforgivable Curses haven't disappeared from society. If anything, they've been magnified, placed under scrutiny and coloured by the current victors. 

Maybe it's not even one of the three. Maybe it's just another member of Dumbledore's Army, someone who has just been covered in the newest article in the Prophet. All Rita Skeeter seemed to write over Summer were special commendations to Neville Longbottom or Luna Lovegood or whoever was popular that week, and at one point (a dry news day, Marietta had thought somewhat bitterly) Ernie MacMillan.

_Witch Weekly_ did an article about her. Someone sent her Butober pus, and she didn't feel even a little bit sorry for Hermione Granger, not even then.

Marietta knows, deep down, that it is a good and moral thing that Harry Potter has done. That doesn't stop her from feeling irritated about it. 

That night, she asks Cho how she feels, because surely Cho feels _something._

"He's a hero," is all Cho says, at last. 

Marietta scoffs and turns over in bed, suddenly irrationally angry.

"Does _anyone_ have an opinion of Harry Potter that extends further beyond that?" she demands.

"Of course not," says Cho, and she's saying the things that she should say, that are fashionable to say now, but the tone of her voice doesn't escape Marietta. It's heavy, not just with the weight of itself but with anger and jealousy and grief. "What more do you need to know about him other than what he's done?"

Marietta is of course very glad that the Dark Lord is dead, and she has never been one for blood purity or torture or murdering Muggles. But she can't seem to vocalise that she can dislike these things and still just not think very much of Harry Potter as a whole.

"There's more to a person," she says at last. "Or to most people."

Cho sniffs, and turns around in her bed, too. "If you want something more complex, go talk to Malfoy or Parkinson." There's an unspoken threat there, one that doesn't actually come from Cho but in fact looms over her.

Criticism of Harry Potter comes from certain people, certain people who, in Marietta's opinion, shouldn't have bothered coming back.

The next morning she wades through a gaggle of excited second years to talk to the heroine of the war. Her hair is even bushier and her bag seems more crammed with books than ever. Marietta scowls.

"Marietta," says Hermione, very crisply. "Hello." She talks to Marietta in the exact tone that McGonagall does, as if she is a child far too stupid to understand anything being said, but also somehow undeserving of any attention or kindness. Marietta thinks that her pride prefers that to Professor Sprout's pitying looks, or even Professor Flitwick's timid attempts at being especially friendly in class, as if to encourage the rest of the school to get on the bandwagon of forgiveness. But she still doesn't like it.

"Hello," she replies, just as coldly.

Hermione's eyes are strange, in a way that Marietta never recognised before, but it's too late to go now. _And,_ she reminds herself, _this is what you came to do._ The thought of looking at the mirror without the sick pang of guilt and rage all but pushed her onto the Hogwarts Express.

"Can I help you with something?" Granger asks, and Marietta suddenly feels ill that she would even _ask._ What else would she need? Why else would she want to talk to her?

"My _face,"_ she snaps incredulously. "Fix it."

Granger's face is suddenly steely. She starts rolling up her shirt sleeve, even though everyone knows that she doesn't do that. Weasley hexed a fourth year who tried to yank it up in the corridor, Marietta remembers.

_Mudblood._

Maybe it's because she's heard Rita Skeeter's sensationalised reports on the torture, or maybe she really is callous and horrible and deserving of the scars on her face, but Marietta still doesn't feel much at all.

"Harry has his scars," Granger says coolly. "And Ron has his, and I have mine. We all made our choices in the war. And you shouldn't make choices if you're afraid they'll turn out to be permanent."

"I was in _fifth year,_" Marietta hisses. That's what Cho said the summer before they started their sixth, and what her father repeated, over and over again, unable to conceive of a world where his daughter had been scarred for making a decision she could not possibly be hoped to understand. He had fought with her mother furiously for putting pressure on her, but in the end the arguments had made way for a glum state of shock.

Everything had changed.

"So was Ron when he got his scars, fighting Death Eaters in the Department of Mysteries," Granger sneers, and Marietta recognises something of what's in her eyes. There's bitterness, and terror, and trauma, and there's _anger_. "We all made our choices in the war, and that's what makes us what we are." She turns abruptly, so that her cloak swishes. The fabric is light and gentle, but it seems to Marietta something definite, heavy, like a judge's hammer or a clanging bell. 

_"Wait."_

Her voice is so desperate that when Granger turns around, she looks like Hermione, not this strange soldier that she has become. Marietta never knew her personally, but it still was discomforting to see her so cold and strange. There is humanity in her eyes now, and it gives her the kind of hope that eats up your stomach.

"I'm sorry, Marietta," she says, and whatever she looks like, she doesn't sound it. "But you made a choice that has permanent consequences. People are still suffering from the version of events you helped make. You should accept that you did something you can't run from."

As she goes, Marietta remembers Cho describing the battle to her after she had fought. Her voice was quiet and shaky. There were bodies of children, she said, and there were bodies in Death Eater masks too.

Marietta knew that they weren't the same thing, and Cho hissed vehemently that they weren't, but she wondered if you were able to distinguish yourself from the opposition in moments where you were all united in blood and hexes and vicious ferocity. Maybe you had to think in black and white to forgive yourself, when you'd been a soldier.

"She's horrible," says Cho. "How Harry can _stand-_"

She goes quiet. It's a habit. Harry is no longer interested in Ginny Weasley, it seems, but when they were dating, she was fiercely possessive, especially around those she felt were potentially problematic. Romilda Vane is convinced that that's why Harry ended it. Cho spent a month or so tentatively speculating about why they broke up, alongside half the school. Marietta thinks it's a little obvious that Harry simply liked Ginny when she was convenient and shiny, and now she's gone dull.

If it wouldn't hurt Cho to hear her say it, Marietta thinks that Hermione Granger is a good match for Harry. He's clearly addicted to the way he lives. It would need to be someone clever and flawed and a little bit cruel- or a dragon- if it would last at all.

"I'm going to ask Potter if he'll help," Marietta replies. She's already made the decision - who else would have a chance at making Granger do anything, after all? - but she knows that Cho will object. It's best to get it out of the way.

"He didn't care when it happened," Cho says sullenly, but she doesn't put up as much of a fight as she could have.

As she sets out to find him, Marietta thinks that the Chosen One surely must care _now._

She finds him in the last place that she expected, which is the library. He's frowning at a book like it's just cursed him and determinedly ignoring a group of excited fourth years.

"Hello," she says.

He looks up at her with a weary disinterest, as if expecting another autograph request, and the expression doesn't change. He squints lightly at her face, as if he might remember her but can't place it. Marietta feels a jolt of fury. 

His eyes only blaze in recognition when he sees the scars. Marietta didn't think that anything could offend her pride more than pity, but this is definitely worse. 

"Mary?" he says at last, sounding mildly surprised and a little proud for remembering even half of her name.

"Etta," she says, adjusting her stance. "I went to speak to Granger, and she won't do anything about my face."

He frowns lightly. "I don't think it was really designed to be reversed. Get-out clauses aren't really Hermione's style."

Rage bubbles somewhere deep in her chest. She can feel something faint behind her eyes. She's never been this angry, never, not even when she first saw it.

"A _get-out clause?"_ she repeats, and her voice is shaking. "You think not being disfigured for the rest of my life is a _get-out clause?"_

"There are worse things," says Harry blandly, and Marietta thinks furiously that not everybody has been busy fighting dragons and defeating Dark Lords to numb their responses to everyday problems of life. "I can ask Hermione if there's something that might help. There might be. But if not, people forget about this sort of stuff. I wouldn't worry about it."

Marietta could hex him, if she doesn't doubt that he'd send her flying through the library and wind up getting yet another trophy for it.

"People will _forget,_" she repeats dully. 

Harry smiles easily at her, and she notes with a kind of raging pain that it is a charming smile. Maybe this is what ensnared Cho and Ginny Weasley and everyone else currently grovelling at his feet. Marietta wants to spit it straight back. 

"You wouldn't believe what I've had to deal with," he says, and Marietta thinks that she would, when _the Daily Prophet_ has done nothing but report every episode of his life in painstaking detail since stories about the battle ran dry. Harry is talking, about being viewed as attention-seeking and Slytherin's heir, and he ends his speech with something charming and hopeful that she's sure would have worked on someone else. But it doesn't on her. She isn't a celebrity, she wants to say, she doesn't get his fluid image or the opportunity to redefine herself on a newspaper cover. She is a scapegoat, a symbol.

She is the sneak.

And Harry is the hero, even though he _isn't._ Even though she isn't important enough of a quest to go on, even if he doesn't care about anything she's going through. Even if he isn't heroic, not where Marietta thinks that it counts, and barely even human.

_He doesn't have to be human,_ she thinks bitterly. _He's past that._


	2. Hero

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marietta has finally found something she can hold over Harry, or so she thinks. 
> 
> His charm turns everything into a trap.

Marietta takes to studying at a table where she can see Potter but - at least not without holding his head at the odd angle everybody else does when he walks into the room - he can't see her. She's glad that he doesn't look round. She's really just a pair of vengeful brown eyes over the top of a book, but the fluffy strawberry blonde hair gives her away. 

She had often talked about dyeing it, but then the incident happened and nothing seemed stable anymore. She didn't dare broach the subject of hair colour with her parents, not with her dad asking more and more anxious questions about him being a Muggle and the current regime and her mother's excuses for working in the Ministry getting increasingly frantic. During the war, the small people had to cling to the small things like hair colour and family dinners. The big things were all in question and it wasn't like they could do any of the asking.

Potter is alone. _Again._ Surely Weasley has never set foot in the library, but Granger basically lives here, and Marietta knows that because she does too. It's only on Wednesday nights, when she runs her Society for the Rights of Magical Creatures (S.R.M.C) group, that she doesn't appear-

So he must be avoiding her, then. Maybe he really _can't_ stand her. That doesn't really help Marietta, although she is sure it will please Cho. 

What is he even doing? She considers asking him, but the very thought makes her retreat into her chair. The night after their first conversation, she had returned to the dormitory sweating and shaking, hissed to a dithering Cho that she was fine, and then thrown up. 

The girls in her dorm had insisted she consult Madam Pomfrey, although the others had done it very weakly. She had run several diagnostic spells and then given her a suspiciously Muggle-looking leaflet on panic attacks, telling her to return should it become more frequent. She was shrilly muttering on about child soldiers and the war taking its toll before her eyes met Marietta's nose, and she remembered. 

Marietta could not be a hero. She was the sneak.

_Exactly. Look where being a coward got you._ She knows that it's her thinking, but the voice sounds suspiciously like Harry's. 

Mind made up, she approaches his table. She's not going to talk, she decides. Just walk past. 

As she does, her eyes catch the title of his book. He appears to be studying Potions, but she notes that it's a fifth year text. Marietta smirks. 

Perhaps it's pathetic, but she takes joy in that. The taunt tastes like chocolate as it slips out of her mouth, sweet and deserved. 

"If you're frowning at that book because you can't find what you're looking for, it's a couple of years below," she says, and she wants it to be biting but it comes out shaky. It's in a fury that she remembers she's still afraid of him. 

_Coward,_ her head sings. _Coward, traitor, sneak._

She must look absolutely terrified because he gestures to the seat in front of him like she's a skittish Thestral. Marietta can't see them, and everyone knows it, but Cho guided her to one. She felt guilty touching it, as if she was partaking in an activity that she hadn't earned. 

"I don't know much about Potions below sixth year," he says. "Snape-" and then he stops sheepishly, because Professor Snape is enjoying a sort of reverence in his death. Marietta knows that some of the Gryffindors still mutter about him, but complaints about favouritism are flimsy once he's compared to Slughorn. Most students would prefer to be judged on their house than whether or not they're thought likely to succeed in life, and anyway, the Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs have little experience of that. The most anyone can say is that he was generally unpleasant and something of a bully to certain students, which is true enough, but hardly stacks up against his heroism. 

_Heroism._ That horrible concept again. It's the most Slytherin thing of all, to be a Gryffindor hero, Marietta thinks. You can behave however you want once you've risked your neck. 

"-didn't get on with me very well," Harry decides on, after an awkward pause in which he scrambled to find a diplomatic way to frame it. "I don't know as much as I should, so I'm trying to catch up." 

"Why don't you ask Hermione?" Marietta asks. She's pleased to hear her tone is suitably waspish. It seems that the the thought of Granger, at least, is able to conjure some form of rage. 

"I asked her about your curse," Harry says, ignoring her question. "The scars might fade, but they won't come off." 

Marietta feels tears burn her eyes. Harry looks as if the sight makes him want to run away and he probably does, if he hasn't matured at all since Cho. She wipes them furiously. 

"I'm sorry," he says, very quietly. 

Marietta makes a hissing noise under her breath. The Death Eaters ought to have tried emotionally venting at him at the Battle of Hogwarts.

"What about it bothers you?" he asks eventually, very carefully. She glares. 

"Isn't it _obvious_?" she snarls. 

"Not to me. I'm not good at this. And I can't really comfort you if I don't know what's going on. Usually Hermione-" and then he stops, because it seems to have registered that she isn't who Marietta wants to hear about, even if he's already let it slip.

She tries to vocalise everything wrong with what happened to her, but knows it will all slide off him like rain on a window. Eventually, she goes for the one thing that he might understand. 

"I just wish people would stop _looking_ at it." 

The Boy who Lived stares at her with new, green eyes.

Testing Harry on Potions becomes a frequent occurrence. It isn't until the third week that Marietta demands to know why he doesn't just do it with Granger. 

Harry shrugs, but he looks down when she asks, black curls tumbling forward. She can see his cheeks are faintly red.

"Well?" she demands. 

"She's got enough on her plate," he says at last. "And now I've got the chance of being - well - _normal,_ I want to do it myself. I've never had a year at Hogwarts where all I had to think about was studying." 

Marietta sniffs. "Normal?" 

Harry shrugs, seemingly not noticing the second year a table across taking photos of him in a way he probably thinks is discreet. "As normal as I'll ever get." He suddenly fixes her with a bright, excited smile, that makes him look a lot younger than his seventeen years. It's striking, especially as he generally looks older. "Are you coming to the Quidditch match tomorrow?"

Marietta goes to bed feeling somewhat thrilled that he asked her and somewhat furious about it. He isn't smooth - not at _all,_ she thinks furiously - but he has a sort of deprived charm to him. Like a starving puppy. 

She tries her best to think of that as an insult. When he's struggling with antidotes and talking about Quidditch, he doesn't seem like the bland mask anymore. He seems like a person and, annoyingly, the person is far more enjoyable company than she would have thought. 

She goes to bed sulkily, not daring to look at Cho. 

The next night she comes back to her dormitory feeling irritated about how good Harry is at Quidditch. Marietta was placed in Ravenclaw because she has always wanted to learn to be _good_ at something. So far, the only talent she has unearthed is betraying people, and naturally she picked the wrong side. 

The girls in her dorm are waiting for her with cold faces and crossed arms. Marietta feels brief panic when she realises that Cho is not among them. 

"What is it?" she asks at last. 

"I saw you in the library with _Harry._"

"So?" says Marietta archly. She doesn't understand it either, but it's hardly anyone's business. 

Of course, when it comes to Harry, everyone decides that it is their business. She feels a stab of sympathy that makes her feel impatient with herself. 

_Get a grip! He's living the high life._

"We all know he's forgiving," says Alice, finally. "But don't think that everyone else will forgive you. And don't you _dare_ hurt Cho." 

Marietta laughs at that, and it makes them see the ridiculousness of it all because they laugh, too. It's cold and mocking but at least it didn't come to wands. Marietta can't duel, won't, and freezes up every time someone points theirs at her, even for a joke. 

The DA _were_ well trained, she'll give Harry that, and they most certainly weren't happy. 

"Of course," says Alice coldly, realising the obvious, "even if he doesn't mind talking to you, he wouldn't ever think of doing something that _would_ hurt Cho. You're just a charity project." 

Even though Marietta agrees, the words play in her mind all night. She knows that Alice is Cho's friend (although she was a terrible one, after Cedric died), not hers, but still, she thinks, there was no need to be deliberately cruel. She's _upset,_ she realises. 

She wonders when she stopped being angry and started being hurt. She thinks it has something to do with cheery nonchalance and bright green eyes. 

"Do you think I'm pretty?" Marietta asks, two weeks later. 

She goes red as soon as she says it. Her whole body goes still and she doesn't dare look up. She can't _believe_ herself. And she knows that Harry won't give her a kind answer either, that it won't occur to him until he's already spoken to give her an assuring or gentlemanly _"of course."_

"Your hair's nice," says Harry, sounding as if he had never heard a less important question. "And your lips, and eyes. I suppose you are."

Marietta thinks about that answer with a scowl. It's not as if Harry doesn't know what beauty _is._ He might be an emotionally stunted child soldier with a visual impairment, but a single look at his past girlfriends would tell you that he knows what "attractive" means. 

It simply didn't occur to him that what Marietta looked like would be important, because even if she's his study mate, maybe even his friend, she's not a potential _girlfriend._ The thought is stupid, just like Alice said. 

That upsets her more than she'd like, but she straightens her hair so that it's glossier and neater than usual and borrows Cho's nice lipstick for next Wednedsay anyway. 

"You look different," Harry says mildly. 

"Do you like it?" Marietta asks. 

He looks surprised to have been asked for his opinion, but says yes. Marietta looks down before she sees a blush on his cheeks. 

The next morning, she doesn't have time to do her hair, but she uses the lipstick again. She'll have to buy her own. Cho gives her a knowing look but doesn't press it, which she's glad about. She'll never get to the stage of actually dating her best friend's ex, but it still hardly seems tactful to say that she's got a crush on him. 

The whole school is abuzz with gossip again. Pansy Parkinson has had a mental breakdown and left Hogwarts. 

Since that, and Rita Skeeter's article about it (_"Piggy Parkinson, The Pureblood Princess who Tried to Sell Potter to the Dark Lord: Ran Out of Hogwarts!"_), the school seems to melt down into a puddle of pleasant apathy. Hogwarts descends into summer and relaxation, and Marietta has never felt more at peace. 

Only the study sessions make her feel tense. Since Cho still likes hanging out with Alice, and Alice is determinedly polite to Marietta in her presence, she has no choice but to spend large amounts of time with three people that don't like her. Harry is her refuge, but in that he's become doubly more attractive. That doesn't matter. In his eyes, she's probably nothing more than an acquaintance. 

Or a charity project. 

Granger knows, of course, and she's sniffy about it, but she still took points from a third year who asked about her scars in the corridor. Weasley nods to her when he sees her now, and drags her behind a suit of armour one day to awkwardly assure her that everything is in the past. Other central figures like Ginny Weasley and Longbottom take note and after that, it trickles out. Marietta is sure by now that she can just take her NEWTs and fade away with most of the world not hating her, if she can keep her secret. 

Nobody other than Harry's close friends know about their Wednesday sessions, because they'd much rather chat about the _Witch Weekly_ rumours about him and Gabrielle Delacour or his favourite ice cream flavour. Marietta will never be newsworthy. That is, until three weeks after the Pansy story, when Rita's quill pot seems to have run dry.

She enters the Great Hall and experiences the great craning of necks from what is generally Harry's perspective. Someone chucks a newspaper at her, face cold and sneering. She has made the front page of _the Prophet._


	3. Harry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Marietta is sure that she can't come back from this, but Harry's with her this time, and he has a knack for doing the impossible.

Her best friend will not talk to her.

Marietta tries to sit next to her in Potions, but her path is blocked by a sneering Alice. Cho draws the curtains firmly around her in the dorms every night, and Marietta knows that she isn't eating with everybody else. She heard some Gryffindors gossiping about it, right before they saw her there and promptly left. She doesn't need to bother avoiding the Great Hall, since Marietta hasn't been stupid enough to eat there since the article came out, but it's not like she can tell Cho that.

_It's stupid,_ Marietta thinks. _She stuck by me when I betrayed a rebel group fighting against the Dark Lord, but hates me because I've been studying with her ex-boyfriend?_

It occurs to her that she wouldn't have thought that before she met Harry. She bitterly shoves the thought down.

It's perhaps hypocritical that she's irritated with Cho, because since the article she's been avoiding him. He hasn't given up as easily as she has, though. He still turns in the hallways to try and speak to her, but it's always blockaded by adoring fans or curious gossipers long after she can slip away. For a while he stood lurking outside her classrooms, looking as if he couldn't even see the expressions of the other Ravenclaw girls as he stood there, but Weasley convinced him to stop doing that. He seemed to understand that it was making it worse. 

When people make snide remarks about her in Charms, he - she's started calling him Ron, but only at a mutter - asks loud questions so that they get drowned out.

Granger has more classes with her than he does, and she offers her protection too. She gives waspish looks at people staring or glaring, and fires back cool comments whenever someone says something she thinks is stupid. She's taken to sitting next to her as well, which frightens people out of sending spells. They still throw things and kick her chair, of course, but Hermione acts as if they meant to get her and then they get in trouble. 

She still won't remove the scars. Marietta is too weary to try and figure that out.

She lies in bed thinking about what Rita Skeeter would write if she left like Pansy Parkinson. Cho is still firmly wrapped up behind her curtains. The other girls are scowling at her like it's her fault - _which it is,_ sings the annoying little voice - but there's not much she can do. Marietta wonders if she can sleep in the Room of Requirement, but _knows_ that Alice would hurry to McGonagall and tell her that she's outside of the dorm.

She's nearly descended into a miserable sleep when the door is knocked. Padma opens it curiously, and then gasps.

Harry Potter is standing outside the dorm in _ridiculous_ pyjamas, an invisibility cloak having severed off half of his arm, smiling cheekily as if he's allowed to be there. Marietta jumps to her feet in outrage. 

"There you are," he says, and even though his tone is light and teasing, there's a bit of an edge to it. "I've been trying to talk to you for days."

"I noticed," Marietta bites back. "You're not allowed in the girl's dormitory of your _own_ house, Potter-"

"So it's _Potter_ now, is it-" Harry begins, but he's cut off by a harsh hiss from the curtains. Cho has yanked them aside at the sound of his surname. The look she gives Marietta makes her want to cry. 

She lets Harry tug her out and close the door behind them. 

"She hates me," is the first thing she says, rather wetly. She hears some comments inside the dorm that suggest they can hear. Harry frowns and mumbles, _Muffliato_, flicking his wand.

"I'm sorry," he says simply, and Marietta knows he means it, because he wouldn't say it otherwise. "She might get over it."

Marietta glares. "She's clearly still upset about the time _you_ fought."

Harry, predictably, deflects. "Why have you been avoiding me? Are you worried about the article?"

Marietta feels that sickening, incredulous rage take over her again, but Harry at least looks far more concerned than Granger. He offers to take her back inside the dorm to sit down, which only increases the urges to maul several of his limbs, but eventually she manages to spit something out in words resembling English. 

"Yes, Potter, I'm _worried about the article._ Everyone thinks we're dating-"

"Exactly."

Marietta stares up at him, holding the thought of punching him in the nose very close to her fist. "What?"

"Everyone thinks it anyway. There's no point in not talking to me, because it won't change their minds." Harry's eyes are very wide and very serious, green and swallowing like the Killing Curse. "You can choose to try and please the people who believe the rubbish that comes out of Rita Skeeter's mouth, or you can focus on people that actually enjoy your company."

The words fling themselves out of her mouth like Bludgers. She doubts that Viktor Krum could have caught them.

"So the thought of us being romantically involved is _rubbish,_ is it?"

"Tomorrow's Wednesday."

Too frustrated to yank an answer out of him, Marietta growls out an acknowledgment and stomps back in with such vehemence that even Alice doesn't say anything. Cho has resumed hibernation. Before she sleeps, she thinks about the expression that crossed Harry's face before he changed the subject - _again_ \- surprise, maybe disgust, pity (which she thinks is most likely), or just confusion, because the boy that discovered the Chamber of Secrets can, when it comes to picking up on romantic suggestions, be very obtuse. 

A thought she only allows to cross her mind when she is nearly clasped in dreams is that it might have been self restraint. 

Their Wednesday appointment has viewers. Harry talks daintily about the Draught of Living Death and stares pointedly at people who come too close. Marietta stares at her feet and mumbles out responses to his cheeriness. 

She wants to tell Harry more about how Cho looked before they went through the door, about her crying and hyperventilating in the bathroom before Arithmancy on Monday, about the nasty comment Alice made about how she looks in her robes, about all the things she's used to talking to Harry about because he always listens and never lies, but she can't when they're surrounded. 

That night, she uses a Disillusionment Charm - because Deathly Hallow and family heirloom or not, Invisibility Cloaks are just _impractical_ \- and sets off for Gryffindor Tower. She ends up down the wrong corridor and has to double back, all the time thinking about what people would say if she was caught sneaking out to visit Harry Potter in the midst of the night.

Her desperation appears to have made her reckless, though. She comforts herself with the thought that if this fails, she can leave Hogwarts forever and meet Harry in discreet coffee shops in whatever country she ends up in. Merlin knows she wouldn't survive in England. 

As expected, there are plenty of Gryffindors flouting curfew and she scampers through the portrait hole with all the dignity befitting their house. It strikes her that she doesn't know what dorm is _his_ \- how did he find her? - and ends up having to whisper a Tracking Spell. She can't cast it non-verbally. Hopefully, the uproar in the Common Room - despite how late it is - will disguise her muttering Latin in the corner. 

She knocks before she can think about it, and then cringes. Who will answer the door? She's relieved when she sees Weasley, who at least is somewhat sympathetic. 

He scowls. "There's no one _there,_ Neville-"

"Go to McGonagall if you're hearing voices," she hears Finnigan say. 

"It's not no-one," she whispers, and Weasley starts. Within seconds, he has out his wand, and she shrieks. Harry has come out and, for three blazing seconds, she sees him as a hero from the perspective of his opposition. And then, he recognises her scream and says - insensitively loudly - _"Marietta?"_

They go down to the kitchens, because she thinks she might die of embarrassment if she has to be there with Finnigan and Thomas and Longbottom gawking, and the Common Room is still hideously loud. Harry knows a couple of the elves - of course he does - and anyway, they're all too happy to provide food. She digs in ravenously.

"You should be eating in the Great Hall."

He winces slightly at her stare.

"At least come and eat here, then. You can't just survive on snacks."

"You don't know what I eat."

Harry smiles. He's right, of course. Marietta thinks that she hates him, and loves him, all at the same time.

"You can be as rude as you want. You did come to find me."

Marietta swallows down her walls with a mouthful of shepherd's pie. "I missed you," she admits, and her voice is stiff but her eyes are soft, and she hopes he will pay attention to that. 

Harry laughs, and she's going to ask him what for but then he tries to kiss her and she's too busy shrieking that she's literally _just_ eaten- 

When she's finished, she tries to kiss him back. 

She gets back to the dorm a little flushed. Harry is surprisingly soft and his kisses surprisingly short. She would have expected him to be more fiery, but simply knowing that he likes her is far more exhilarating than she ever could have thought or imagined. Even when she sees them, all there in a smug line with Cho at the furious end, she notes something sweet and bubbly in her chest. 

Alice tries to speak, but Cho cuts her off. "Can I talk to you?" she says, and her voice is brittle and so dangerous that Marietta just nods. They go outside the dorm, and Marietta knows that they can hear, but she can't cast _Muffliato_ and she doesn't dare ask Cho. 

"How could you?"

"How could I _what?_ Have a study partner?"

"Don't try and convince me that he's your _study partner-"_

"He was," says Marietta, and her voice is shaking but defiant. "He was, until tonight."

Cho's shoulders draw in. Marietta feels an ache that burns skin deep, and then something suddenly gives way. It hurts. It feels like her stomach has been turned inside out. But at the same time, it's definitely gone. 

"Well, I guess I know how much our friendship meant to you," Cho says finally, and her voice is very small.

"Considering that I've been trying to talk to you all week, I'd say that you're the one that's ruining the friendship," Marietta says coldly. "That article was fake. Complete and utter rubbish, like everything she writes. Harry and I hadn't discussed romance since this evening, and Rita Skeeter is no more a Seer than she is a decent journalist."

"I knew you liked him," Cho snaps, with more conviction, but the words are hollow. She thought, just like Alice, that the Boy who Lived could never love plain, selfish, _sneaky_ Marietta. 

"No," she says flatly. "No, you didn't."

She closes the door behind her and gets into bed without even looking at anyone else. Cho wrenches it open and lies in her own bed, but she isn't even attempting to sleep. Marietta wonders if she will talk to her again. 

She does not wonder if she has done the right thing, though. After all, that sort of thinking is very black and white.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!
> 
> I'm aware that Harry is being portrayed slightly unfairly at this stage, but this is all from Marietta's perspective. It will change eventually. I'd really appreciate comments/feedback, as this is my first fanfiction!


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